Advertisement
Published: January 11th 2010
Edit Blog Post
Day 45 and 46: Muar to Batu Pahat
After a restful day of fun and business in Muar, we prepared to depart our hotel. But first we were introduced to Doris and Daniel, the sister in law and nephew of our hotel’s owner. They spoke perfect English and were very friendly and interesting. Doris’ other son attended college in the United States and the family had a great love for all things American. We spoke to them for about thirty minutes, them peppering us with questions, before setting off biking.
Stopped by the side of the road on our way out of town to look at a map, a man on a motorbike pulled over to give us a direction and then gave us a giant bag of lychee-like fruits he was porting. He insisted! As if helping us with directions wasn’t enough!
A ten-year old boy on a bicycle rode next to me for awhile, chatting to me in good English. He was biking home from school for lunch with his friends, but his friends were behind us and he speeded up to chat. He was pretty adorable in his little Muslim top hat and button-up shirt
with matching blue slacks.
It was a splendid day, sunny and hot, as we were so close to the equator now, and we were biking on a local road, through friendly neighborhoods. Doris and Daniel rode by us in their car, waved, then pulled over to the side of the road. They said, we live 22 km farther, why don’t you come and stay with us tonight? We’ll show you around our town, Batu Pahat. We hadn’t gone far, but we’d never been invited to stay with locals in Malaysia either. So of course we said yes! They offered to take our bags in their car to lighten our load, but knowing we wouldn’t be going far today, and not having biked the previous day, we would have felt lazy without our bags.
A little over an hour later, we called Daniel once we reached his Batu Pahat. Daniel drove his car to meet us on the roadside, and led us up to the house he shares with his mom. It was a delightful one-story, modern and spacious home behind a gate, set on a hill overlooking town. Hesitant as always at first with strangers, we soon discovered that these two were genuinely some of the world’s nicest people, and we had made a great decision coming to stay.
Doris was a retired home-ec and English teacher. Her husband was a doctor, but he had passed away four years prior. Their other son now lived in London. Daniel attended school in London also and now worked nearby as a writer for a software company. He wanted to work in Singapore as the money was much better and the technology was more advanced, but he was such a dutiful son it is unlikely he would leave his mother alone. He was a 26 year old man, yet he lived at home and spent most of his time with her, taking her on errands, planning their weekends together. OK, so maybe he was a serious momma’s boy and will never get married, but it was sweet to see someone so dutiful and loving to their mother.
Doris was a hilarious whirlwind, fussing over us, making us eat more, talking up a storm. She was like a really terrific Grandma. They brought us on a drive in to town, where we ate BBQ duck and pork on rice at an outdoor restaurant. They insisted on paying for everything, would not even hear of us paying. You could ask them anything, and they wouldn’t get offended, they were both extremely informative, answering all the questions we’d built up, yet totally honest about the shortcomings of their country too.
At dinner, it somehow came up that I was Jewish.
Doris, thrilled to pieces, yells, “Son, a Jew!”
Daniel, embarrassed to no end, replies “Mum, shh!” The exchange was very loud, and it was hilarious. But Daniel really was fascinated by Jews, telling me I was only the third Jew he’d met in his life. He thought Jews were God’s chosen people as proven by the fact that they are all skillful and talented.
We ran some errands in the car together, and then Doris insisted we see the expensive golf country club they belonged to, as well as the outcroppings of multi-million dollar homes popping up on the hills above her home, even higher above town. Doris insisted on doing our laundry and Daniel insisted on setting us up to use his computer and internet. They demanded we make ourselves comfortable in the living room, watch TV, read the newspaper and eat chocolates. Fine!
They were Christians, and had faced discrimination in this Muslim country for their beliefs. The family had converted from Buddhism when the kids were little and they explained how tonight Buddhists around town were burning paper money, fake cars, fake cellphones and fake houses in big fires in their driveways. These gifts would go straight to their ancestors in one of the levels of hell. We drove all through town, looking at the burning fires and the lit candles set in the ground.
Daniel took us with him to church, but thinking we might be bored for the whole two hours, he went, came back for us halfway through, and after fifteen minutes drove us him, and then he himself went back again. The church was just a room in a strip mall, with a priest using power point, and about thirty Chinese and two Indians sitting in set-up chairs. Besides the fact that we were not interested in the sermon, the setting was so underwhelming compared to our beautiful New England churches. But of course we listened politely for those long fifteen minutes. Afterwards, Doris wanted Daniel to take us out for tea and roti, a popular late-night activity, but we were too tired from all the fun they’d already shown us.
It was so cozy and comfy to sleep in a real home, under a real family comforter, with a real family after staying only in hotels for what felt like months.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.192s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 66; dbt: 0.0608s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
sayhau
ong sayhau
oh god, you were so close to me!